


we can start it all over again

by chasinghappiness



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, Future Fic, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-12 03:56:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20557847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasinghappiness/pseuds/chasinghappiness
Summary: She starts skating, surprisingly, when she is six years old.





	we can start it all over again

**Author's Note:**

> the title and subsequent chapter titles are from over again by one direction.

She starts skating, surprisingly, when she is six years old. To the shock of many, it isn’t a small two or three year old who first gets her skates laced up, tight around tiny feet that can barely navigate solid ground let alone a patch of ice. And it isn’t her mother who insists she start the sport.

“Mama,” she says, voice soft spoken, just like her mother’s. “Can I do that?” The television screen in front of them has been playing a loop of old programs. None of her mother’s; that is untouchable. 

Her mother looks down at her, green eyes worrisome, sparking a fear inside Olive that perhaps she’s asked something she shouldn’t have. “I—” her mother pauses, her fingers gripping the ends of Olive’s hair perhaps a bit too tightly. Not that she minds. There’s a shift in her mother, something even six year old Olive can perceive, one that comes with closed eyelids and a deep breath inhaled through her nostrils. “I suppose.”

And then two weeks later it is Christmas, and under the tree, wrapped up in golden foil is a cardboard box that holds her very own skates.

“I guessed your size,” her mother says from the couch. Olive hasn’t paid her very much attention, though, while sat on the floor marvelling at the white and silver clutched in her hands. “We’ll have to get them sized, and be careful holding the blade, honey, you don’t want to cut your hand. I wasn’t sure what kind of guards or soakers you would want so we can go to the store later on and—”

“Moooommm,” Olive drawls, placing the skates down and turning to place her hands on her mother’s knees. She squeezes, like she is the adult in this relationship, comforting her mother. “You talk too much.” Then she throws her arms around her mother’s neck. “Thank you,” Olive whispers into a warm neck splattered with freckles.

And then two weeks later Olive is in a skating rink for the first time. It’s colder than she was expecting and she ends up pulling on her mittens much faster than she thought she would be. Her instructor is nice but young, in a way where Olive recognizes that she is older than her, of course, six year olds aren’t teaching other six year olds how to skate, but there is a youthfulness to her pink cheeks and shrill voice.

The first time she falls is jarring. Olive’s been on the ice for thirty minutes, really feeling like she’s been getting the hang of the whole skating thing, but then she catches her toepick on a hole in the ice and goes falling forward. The world pauses around her, the breath in her lungs stolen from her with the impact her chest makes with the ground. For some reason, all the instructors and even some of the parents in the stands turn to look directly at Olive’s mother.

She doesn’t do much though, her mother. Olive sits up on her bum, feels as the ice starts to melt through her pink leggings, and the telltale threat of tears builds up in her eyes, her lip beginning to wobble. Her mother senses all of this, but all she says is, “Go on, up you get.” And then with a press of her lips, tight, and the grinding of her teeth, she continues; “You can never be better without knowing the worst.”

Olive hears the instructor whisper to her mother; “I’m so sorry Miss Virtue.”

“Tessa is fine,” her mother smiles at the instructor, then pats the girl’s hand. “It’s not your fault. Please do not treat my daughter different from any of the other skaters here.”

“But—”

“No buts,” her mother says, kind but firm.

Olive gets up, shakes out her limbs, and continues to skate.

**…**

The skating lessons go on. It isn’t a linear process; some days Olive can’t wait to lace up and find a home on the ice again, others she pouts throughout the entire car ride to the rink. Her mom never pushes or drags her, though. _ This is your choice, _she always says. Olive keeps coming back though. There is something within her, a pull deep in her gut, that makes her want to become one with the ice. When her blades scrape across the frozen ground, her hair whipping around her, she feels the most herself.

They level her up quickly, asking Olive to complete jumps that none of the other girls her age can even attempt without seriously injuring themselves. Olive can, though. She hears her mom arguing with the instructors, telling them not to push Olive, that she doesn’t need to be _ great _ or _ special. _Olive wonders why her mother doesn’t want her to be any of those things.

The pieces start to fall into place.

“I wonder if she still speaks to Scott,” one of the older girls says to another, low, like they are committing a crime with their words.

“I hope so,” the other girl says, staring directly at Olive’s mother. “It would be kind of tragic if they didn’t, huh?”

The first girl shrugs. “I guess. I’ve heard he was quite the jerk, though.”

Olive tugs on the bottom of the other girl’s jacket, pulling their attention to her. “Who’s Scott?” she asks innocently.

Both of the girls stare at her like she’s crazy. “You—you’re Tessa’s daughter, right?”

Olive nods. “Yeah, that’s my mom,” she replies, pointing to her mother sitting in the stands, watching their interaction closely. Tessa’s too far away to hear anything, though.

“And you don’t know who Scott is?” the second girl asks. Olive shakes her head. _ Should she know who he is? _“Well,” the girl, completely ignoring Olive, addresses the other with a nudge to her side, “I guess there’s your answer.”

After that lesson, in the car ride home, Olive asks the question.

“Mama, who’s Scott?”

Tessa stops the car abruptly, almost missing the red light in front of them. Olive watches her mother’s hands go white from the way she is gripping the steering wheel. A horn blares behind them, making Olive jump in her seat and dig her nails into the pair of balled up mittens that are bunched together in her hands. The air in the car is suddenly very tense.

“Where did you hear about Scott?” Tessa asks quietly. Her voice cracks when she says the name.

Olive isn’t sure she wants to answer. “Uh.” She fidgets in her seat. “Some of the girls at the rink were talking about him. They wondered if you still talk to him.” Silence fills the vehicle. The traffic light in front of them turns from red to green and her mother hesitates before pressing gently on the gas. “So who is Scott?”

“No one,” her mother replies sharply. Olive flinches and Tessa seems to catch the reaction in the rearview mirror with the way she quickly reaches behind her and places a hand on Olive’s knee. “He’s just… an old friend.”

“Okay,” Olive says, complicit with the answer even though she suspects there is more to the story. Her mother mentions chicken nuggets for dinner and that puts the conversation quickly to rest. For now.

**…**

Olive sits beside her mother in the stands after practice, sipping out of her water bottle and flexing her toes and feet after the exertion they went through for a whole hour. They watch the ice dancers take the ice, pairing up and doing laps of the rink while holding hands. Something pulls in Olive, stronger than the force that she feels for the ice in general. This is one she cannot ignore.

“Mama,” she whispers, slipping her hand into the much bigger one that belongs to her mother. Olive is reminded of a year prior, sitting on the couch and watching toe loops and combo spins on the television. “Can I try that?”

“No,” Tessa responds immediately. Olive blinks, not expecting that reaction.

“But why?”

“I said no.” There’s a finality in her voice, one that says this isn’t up for discussion.

Olive grabs her mother’s cheeks, forcing her to look her in the eyes. “If you tell me why, I won’t ask again.”

Tessa sighs and grabs Olive’s hands in one of her own, the other reaching up to tuck the stray strands of red hair behind her ears. Olive gives her all when she skates, her hair somehow always taking the biggest hit in the process. Every time she gets of the ice her ponytail is almost fallen out, the elastic barely hanging onto the ends of her hair. 

“I don’t want you getting hurt,” her mother says softly. 

“We’ll just find a good boy,” Olive responds. “He will be smart and nice and he won’t hurt me.”

Tessa laughs at that, her finger poking the tip of Olive’s nose, most likely touching directly over one of her many freckles. “No boy is as smart or as nice as they seem. They all end up hurting you.” Olive scrunches her face at that. Her mother sighs, long and thoughtful, before turning to face the ice again. One of the boys picks up one of the girls, both of them giggling with their heads thrown back. If Olive looks closely, she thinks her mother starts to cry.

“Mama…”

“Okay,” she whispers. “Okay… you can dance.”

Olive grins and throws her arms around her mother, breathing in the scent of strawberries and vanilla and home.

**…**

They try to match her with one of the boys at the rink she’s at, but none of them measure up to what natural ability she’s been thankfully gifted with. It’s failed partnership after failed partnership. None of their hands feel comfortable in her own, none of them make her feel the way skating on her own does. When her mother asks about the boys, Olive responds with a resounding _ they’re okay. _

It’s what leads to a trip home to where her grandmother lives, except they bypass her house and head straight to expansive strips of farmland that smell like they’ve seen better days. Hidden amongst the fields of golden wheat and slowly climbing corn stalks is a small arena. Plastered to the front is her mother’s name, written in big letters that make Olive gasp with the grandness of them. Underneath is a name she has never heard from her mother’s mouth; just the mouths of skaters at the rink who stare at Tessa with sad eyes and hung heads.

Her mother greets a woman with a long hug, one that would only be shared by two people who once were very close, only to be torn apart by distance and circumstances. “Thank you for doing this, Carol,” Tessa mumbles into the jacket the other woman adorns. Olive recognizes it from the very back of her mother’s closet. 

When they pull away, the woman, Carol, stares at Olive for a long while. “Hi,” she says, almost in shock, then places her hand on her chest. “She looks just like you, Tess.”

Olive’s not used to hearing that. The only people she meets from her mother’s past are her family. 

“I’m Carol,” the woman introduces herself. “And you must be Olivia.”

“Olive,” she and her mother respond at the same time, the two of them giggling afterwards, leaving Carol smiling sadly in front of them. 

“Olive,” Carol parrots. “Why don’t you lace up and head onto the ice while I talk to your mom, okay?”

She nods and excitedly takes her skates from the bag slung over her shoulder, pulling at the laces and toeing off her hot pink running shoes. While she spends time finding the familiar grooves in the fabric of her skates, getting her feet situated perfectly within them, she listens closely to her mother’s conversation.

“How is he?” her mother asks, quietly, hesitantly, like she shouldn’t be allowed to know the answer.

Carol sighs. “He is… alright.”

“And the boys?”

“Struggling. She’s moving back to Tampa, so they’re stuck with a choice; who do they go with?”

“God. That’s awful, I could never imagine. What if they don’t choose him? Or what if one wants to go with her and the other wants to stay here with him?”

Olive looks up just in time to see Carol shrug and wipe a hand under her eyes, catching a tear. “I don’t know, Tess. I don’t know.”

She doesn’t wait for permission to join the ice, doesn’t want to interrupt the conversation that seems very adult, one that she shouldn’t be hearing. The second her blades hit the ice something feels different. It feels… bigger. More important. That tug is back in her gut but even stronger. She takes the time to find her edges, turning her blades in then out, falling into a spread eagle then jumping into an axel. When she lands it, she lets out a quiet _ yes _under her breath and continues to skate.

“Wow, that was good,” a voice says behind her, unexpectedly. It scares her, sending her off her feet, her butt landing hard on the ice beneath her. “Oh! I’m so sorry!” the voice shouts. Olive notices that it’s a boy, probably only a few years older than her, if that. He reaches a hand out, his voice filled with unspoken apologies, and she grabs it graciously.

“Thanks,” she says shyly. “I just wasn’t expecting anyone else to be here.”

The boy smiles widely. “You’re at a public rink…”

Olive rolls her eyes and gives him a shrug. “Yeah, I know. I just… I wasn’t expecting you, okay?”

She skates away but the boy follows her closely, saying, “Okay, I get that.” He falls in line beside her easily. Olive clocks the way he can keep up with her better than any other boy ever could. “What’s your name?”

“Olive.”

“I’m Samuel,” the boy says, skidding to a stop in front of her, making her come to a pause as well. “But people usually call me Sam.” Olive acknowledges him, nodding, then bypassing him and continuing to skate. “Wait!” Sam follows close behind, stroking harder to catch up with her. Olive smirks when she can hear his heavy breathing, coming out in puffs from overexertion. “Are you a dancer?”

“Not yet,” Olive responds.

Sam, she learns, is bold. He grabs her hand easily, like it’s nothing, and she would have snatched it back if it didn’t feel so right. “What do you mean not yet?”

“I—I don’t have a partner.”

“Neither do I.” Sam’s smile is so wide, like the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland who used to scare her when she was younger. Except Sam isn’t scary; he’s infectious. For some reason, Olive can feel a smile of her own start to grow at the edges of her mouth.

“Cool.”

They don’t say much after that, just stroke around the ice together, hand-in-hand. Olive feels pleasant in the way she feels after eating a good meal, or getting a good grade, or skipping fifty jumps in a row without getting tangled in the rope. It’s something satisfactory. She’s never felt like this on her own.

“Mama,” she says when the two of them, Olive and Sam, skate up to the boards where Tessa and Carol stand, still talking. “I think I found a partner.”

Her mother turns finally, her eye catching the boy whose hand is still in Olive’s, and she gasps. “Oh…” She turns to Carol, both of the women’s eyes wide. “Is he…”

“Yes,” Carol says. “I brought him with me but I told him to stay in the office. Tessa, I’m so sorry, I—”

“It’s okay,” her mother cuts the other woman off, her hand held up. 

“Hey!” Sam shouts, his finger pointing accusedly at Olive’s mother. “You’re Tessa! Gosh, Dad talks about you a _ lot, _like, too much. We’ve got pictures of you all over our house.”

Tessa shuts her eyes tight and Olive furrows her brow. “Why do you have pictures of my mom in your house?”

“Scott’s my dad!” And there’s that name again; _ Scott. _If only anyone would tell her why his name sounds so heavy coming out of everyone’s mouths. “And Tessa’s your mom. Gosh, that’s so cool. How cool is that, Aunt Carol?!”

Samuel seems to be the only one who is having fun with this realization. 

“We shouldn’t have come here,” her mother says sharply. “Olive, please take your skates off, I think it’s time we head home.”

“Tess, please,” Carol pleads. “Don’t go, I really am sorry. I didn’t realize they would find each other.” She pauses for a moment, placing her hand on Tessa’s shoulder and smiling. “It’s kind of like fate, huh?”

For a moment, Olive thinks her mother will soften. Her eyes turn gentle in the way she looks just before bed, when she tells Olive how much she loves her, and wishes her the sweetest dreams. Her shoulders sink, comfortable, in a way they haven’t been since they rolled into town. But then she hardens and says, in a voice colder than the ice around them, “No. It’s… it’s not fate. Olive, sweetie, please take your skates off.”

**…**

On the ride home Olive dozes off in the backseat, her eyes shut and sleep swirling around, not quite overtaking her but hanging on, making the edges of her mind fuzzy. She’s awake enough to hear when the phone rings through the car system and her mother answers with a questioning hello, clearly unsure as to who it is that’s calling.

“So I hear you met my son today.”

Olive hears her mother’s sharp inhale and feels the car jolt slightly. “Scott.”

So this is the mysterious Scott.

“You remember my name.”

“Of course I do,” her mother bites back.

“It seems your daughter doesn’t know a thing about me, though. I would have thought you would’ve forgotten everything by now.” The man’s voice doesn’t sound nice. In fact, it makes Olive uneasy.

“I’m three seconds away from hanging up on you, Moir.”

“Don’t,” the man says desperately, softer than he had spoken before. There’s a pause and the speakers crackle for a moment. “Samuel told me all about a pretty little girl he danced with today. Is it true that she wants to be an ice dancer?”

“You deserve to know absolutely nothing about my daughter.”

“And isn’t it true she needs a partner? One that will keep up with her? That sounds familiar, T.”

Her mother is very seldom rendered speechless. This seems to be one of those times.

“Tess… I know you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” her mother responds immediately. “I don’t.”

“Could have fooled me.” A long pause where Olive tries to focus on the road rolling beneath them. She doesn’t think she should be listening to this conversation. “It doesn’t matter, Tess. It doesn’t. What matters is our kids. Isn’t that right?”

Olive opens one eye, hoping her mother doesn’t see. She catches Tessa wiping tears from her face. “Right,” her mother says gently. Olive shuts her eyes again when she sees her mother start to turn around to glance at her.

“If our kids want to skate together, shouldn’t we let that happen?”

“I don’t know, Scott…”

“I know I hurt you, Tess. God, I live with that fact every day. And I know nothing I say right now is going to heal what I broke. But I know my Sammie, and I know how badly he fell in love with your little girl. I… I remember being his age and falling in love with a little girl, too.”

“If he hurts her, Scott, I swear to God—”

“I’m not going to let him do that. I promise.”

“You’ve promised a lot.”

“I… I know. But this is my kid, Tess. And your kid. I’ve never met her, but I just know I would never let anything hurt her.”

Her mother exhales loudly and Olive feels the ground underneath them stop moving. “I’m not saying yes. But… maybe we could let them skate together again. Just once. And… and we can see what happens from there.”

**Author's Note:**

> not really sure where this is going, but i hope you stick around to figure it out!
> 
> (just giving a heads up now: no, olive is not scott's, and no, samuel is not tessa's. i know that's a theme around here but it will not be a twist in this fic.)


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